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GUY STANDING on why universal basic income is gathering momentum

NBR Radio has teamed up with Spotify to bring Sunday Business to its podcast platform. You can also listen to the full episode free on SoundCloud here.

This week's featured guest on NBR Sunday Business with Andrew Patterson is Guy Standing, a former British academic who has written extensively about universal basic income.

Universal basic income is an idea that seems to be gathering some momentum globally, with cautious support for the idea being expressed from both sides of the political divide as well as from a few Silicon Valley heavyweights including Tesla founder Elon Musk.

However, former Prime Minister John Key described the idea of paying everyone a fixed income, irrespective of their circumstances, as “barking mad.”

In New Zealand this week to promote his recent book, Basic Income and How We Can Make It Happen, Andrew Patterson discusses the idea with Mr Standing, who argues a fundamental breakdown of income distribution and a growing level of job displacement as a result of technology advances requires an entirely new approach to the way people will be paid in the future.